To an active external commerce the protection of a naval
force is indispensable. This is manifest with regard to wars
in which a State is itself a party. But besides this, it is in
our own experience that the most sincere neutrality is not
a sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at
war. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires a naval
force organized and ready to vindicate it from insult or
aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going
to war by discouraging belligerent powers from committing
such violations of the rights of the neutral party as
may, first or last, leave no other option. From the best information
I have been able to obtain it would seem as if
our trade to the Mediterranean without a protecting force
will always be insecure and our citizens exposed to the calamities
from which numbers of them have but just been
relieved.

These consideratious invite the United States to look to
the means, and to set about the gradual creation of a navy.
The increasing progress of their navigation promises them
at no distant period the requisite supply of seamen, and
their means in other respects favor the undertaking. It is
an encouragement, likewise, that their particular situation
will give weight and influence to a moderate naval force in
their hands. Will it not, then, be advisable to begin without
delay to provide and lay up the materials for the building
and equipping of ships of war, and to proceed in the work
by degrees, in proportion as our resources shall render it
practicable without inconvenience, so that a future war of
Europe may not find our commerce in the same unprotected
state in which it was found by the present?